The first buyout of the season took place on Friday, and it was a big one! Just as the buyout window opened, the Canucks decided to part ways with Oliver Ekman-Larsson and his albatross contract. Ekman-Larsson had four more years with an $8.25 million cap hit per season.

I didn't think the Canucks would buy out Ekman-Larsson this summer, but they had to do something to get under a salary cap ceiling that is barely increasing. Punting the problem down the road with nearly $20 million worth of dead cap space spread out until 2031 is the price that the Canucks will have to pay. Although that seems less than ideal in a league where cap efficiency matters, the Canucks are banking on the fact that the salary cap will rise more significantly than it has during the COVID years. The Canucks also no longer need to consider trading someone like Brock Boeser or Conor Garland along with a sweetener just to create cap space.  

If you’re wondering what on earth would bring the Canucks to make such a trade (full trade here), the Ekman-Larsson trade was a desperation move by Jim Benning for the Canucks to both make the playoffs and save his job. Since neither of those happened, Canucks fans can only hope that this is the end of the inefficient signings and questionable deals that have happened far too often over the last decade.

OEL was a fixture on the second-unit power play during his two seasons there, but the Canucks already have a replacement with Filip Hronek, who would have likely leapfrogged OEL or played alongside him anyway had he stayed. It's possible that Jack Rathbone or Christian Wolanin could squeak their way onto PP2 as well if they make the Canucks, barring other offseason transactions to upgrade the defense.

This may not be the end for Ekman-Larsson, who could sign elsewhere as a free agent. It's probably well-known by now that he would likely slot in as a third-pairing defenseman on a short-term, low cap hit contract. His days of being a worthwhile fantasy option are probably over, though.

An analytics summary of Ekman-Larsson's past three seasons:

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I'll take the opportunity to follow up on a few rambles that I made yesterday:

I may have hinted that the Golden Knights didn't make any huge additions at the trade deadline, but I completely forgot about Ivan Barbashev, considering how much of an impact he made during the playoffs. Only four Vegas players finished with more playoff points than Barbashev, whose 18 points in 22 games fit the profile of solid deep sleeper in playoff pools. He also finished the regular season with a solid 16 points in 23 games after being traded from St. Louis. I'm sure the Golden Knights would love to have him back, but I'm not so sure they have the cap space.

Barbashev's playoff performance has set himself up for a big payday in a relatively weak free agent crop, but I don't think that his fantasy value will change a bunch (depending on where he lands). He profiles as a middle-six scorer who has plus value in bangers leagues because of his strong hits totals (at least 150 hits over each of the past two seasons). His offense is limited because of a low shot rate, as he has never taken more than 1.5 SOG/GP in any of his seven seasons. As well, he has never been a regular first-unit power-play option in either St. Louis or Vegas.

The other follow-up item is on Mark Stone. On the 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman suggested that Stone could be "in and out" of the lineup going forward because of his chronic back issue. This smells like Peter Forsberg near the end of his career, or even the "perpetual game-time decision" of a young Roope Hintz a few years ago. In other words, Stone could be a high-maintenance player on your fantasy team. If you have your finger on your lineup throughout the day, then that might work. But if you're a "set and forget" manager, then forget it. Add to that the frustration of another trip to IR potentially being just around the corner, and I'm back to my original stance on Stone. In other words, it's highly unlikely that I keep him for next season or draft him in the top 100.

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Looking at the Florida page at Cap Friendly, their defense could look very different at the start of next season. Besides Aaron Ekblad, who could miss the start of the 2023-24 season, their remaining defensemen have either one year remaining (Brandon Montour, Gustav Forsling, Josh Mahura) or are UFAs. I could see the Panthers extending Montour and Forsling over the summer. Regardless, it's something to keep an eye on.

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In the earlier days of my online fantasy hockey experience, I used to try to mine players that were undervalued by Yahoo on the basis of missing a bunch of games during the previous season. In other words, I would try to target players that had a high point-per-game average. It's still not a bad strategy, although the information age has made it more difficult for these players to slip under the radar. Below I'll identify a few players that played fewer than 70 games and might fall down the rankings of those who primarily sort by points.

Aleksander Barkov

Barkov has played a similar number of games over the past two seasons (67 and 68), which is why he's on the Band-Aid Boy Trainee list. His production fell by 10 points after his point-per-game average dropped from 1.31 PTS/GP in 2021-22 to 1.15 PTS/GP in 2022-23. Yet he was bound to drop from that career-high point-per-game number, given his career averages over the past 10 seasons.

Barkov's drop in points came all in the form of goals, as he fell from a career-high 39 goals in 2021-22 to 23 goals in 2022-23. Some bad luck in the shooting department contributed, as he dropped from a career high 18.2% to 11.0%, his lowest total in five years. Something closer to his near-14% career average should mean that he is pushing for 30 goals.

Pavel Buchnevich

Like Barkov, Buchnevich is a Band-Aid Boy Trainee, which is because he has averaged 68 games per season over the past two seasons. The injury bug hit especially hard for Buchnevich in 2022-23, as he was held to just 63 games after missing four different stretches of games. Yet even injuries couldn't slow him from reaching the point-per-game mark (67 PTS in 63 GP) for the second consecutive season. In other words, he's had back-to-back seasons in which he's put up an 85+ point 82-game pace.

Buchnevich's shooting percentage was an abnormally high 21.1% in 2022-23, which is a rate that allowed him to score 26 goals while his shot total dropped to 2.0 SOG/GP – a 0.7 SOG/GP drop from 2021-22. If that seems like a reason to drop Buchnevich down your draft list, that might be offset by the fact that only 31.7% of his assists in 2022-23 (13 of 41) were secondary assists. If his shot rate doesn't increase and he loses goals as a result, there's still room to grow in the assists department.

Travis Konecny

In 2022-23, Konecny hit the point-per-game mark (61 points in 60 games) for the first time in his career. This might have been unexpected, not only considering the state of the Flyers but also by the fact that Konecny scored nine fewer points in 19 more games the season before. One reason for the increased point total was the fact that his goal total nearly doubled from 16 to 31. An increased shot rate from 2.8 SOG/GP to 3.2 SOG/GP helped with that, but unfortunately so did an increased shooting percentage from 7.3% in 2021-22 to 16.2% in 2022-23.

The shooting percentage isn't the only reason that Konecny's fantasy value is volatile. Because of the rebuilding state of the Flyers, Konecny is listed on the trade block. A trade might not change his value a whole lot, but we'll have to wait and see if he lands elsewhere before determining his value for the 2023-24 season.

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